


The Room that was Hers

by Cantatrice18



Category: Secret of Moonacre (2008)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Memories, Plot What Plot, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bedroom that Benjamin gives Maria is so special, so different from the rest of the house, yet he is reluctant to even go near the place. Here are his reasons why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Room that was Hers

The room had been hers. Benjamin had given it to her, for the nights when, after riding together for hours, the sky had become too dark for her to make her way home once more. The room was perfect for her, perfect in every way. The walls were painted to resemble the surrounding countryside, the ceiling to look like stars, so that it hardly felt like a room at all, just a big platform from which nothing on earth or in heaven was hidden. She’d loved it – what could be more suited to her, she who adored every animal that crossed her path and who would often stop what she was doing just to gaze at the sky. “It’s just so lovely, Benjamin,” she would say, her voice assuming a dreamy quality. “I can’t stop staring at beauty like that.” And of course, he understood. After all, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her beauty. No walls deserved to keep her sweetness trapped within them, and so he went as far as he could to keep her in nature, where she belonged. 

When Maria came to the manor, the room had been abandoned for some time. He hadn’t had the heart to even go near it since the one for whom it was made had betrayed and abandoned him. It was Marmaduke who persuaded him to give the room over to his brother’s child. She’d enjoy it, he'd said, it would calm and soothe her in her grief and anxiety over her father’s death and her strange new home. The idea of that room bringing peace and joy to anyone was almost comical now. Benjamin had no room in his heart for the memories he’d made there, not of her gleeful laugh as she gazed up at the starry ceiling, nor of her eyes reflecting the light from the little hearth. 

The girl, Maria, could keep the room. The room that had been hers, the little paradise they’d made together, was gone forever. Only in his dreams would he again stare at the painted landscape that adorned the walls, and feel the warmth of her as he ran his hands through her long golden hair. His world had gone dead; his life was endless grey monotony. If the valley was to be cast into eternal darkness forever, though, his secret wish was that the stars and constellations that lined the ceiling of that room which had, for a brief and wonderful time, been hers, would never cease to shine.


End file.
